Redcoat/Chapter 12
AFTER the two wild rushes made at the fence as described in the last chapter Redcoat concluded that discretion was the better part of valor, so he slunk into the further corner of the enclosure and crouched upon the ground, watching Bud and Mr. Jennings as long as they stayed in the pen. For five minutes the two men stood admiring the fox and talking eagerly. Mr. Jennings fairly feasted his eyes upon him, for in all his experience of breeding captive foxes he had never seen one that could compare with Redcoat. Several times he held up the lantern that he might get a better view, and the Red Flower in the strange thing made Redcoat blink and partly close his eyes. But finally even Mr. Jennings was satisfied and they went away, after locking both the door to the pen and the gateway in the guard fence some thirty feet beyond it.
Redcoat heard their footsteps die away in the distance, and then he arose and went cautiously about the inclosure. The pen in which he was confined was twenty-five feet by fifty, and it was one of about fifty pens covering an area of five acres, with a guard fence running entirely around the farm, the whole inclosure comprising the Sheerfield Silver Fox Farm. The wire netting of which the fence was made was galvanized and a little heavier than chicken netting. It was six feet high and was bent over at a right angle on top, extending about a foot and a half over the pen. It was this shelf against which Redcoat had struck his head when he climbed to the top of the fence. A foot and a half underground the netting also ran back into the pen for about twenty inches. Redcoat did not know this at the time, but he discovered it later. In one corner of the pen was a box about the size of the trap in which Bud had caught Redcoat, and he immediately concluded this was another trap. So the men were not content at having confined him in this pen; they had also set a trap for him inside the inclosure. So, he kept as far away from it as possible for the first day. About a foot and a half from the ground and fastened to the wire netting were two tin dishes, each holding about two quarts. One of these was for food and the other for water. This also Redcoat discovered the following day. Although the fence had thrown him back viciously, yet he finally got up courage to examine it on all sides. At first he sniffed it from a safe distance, but as it did him no harm, he went up close and to his surprise and fear he found it had the forbidding smell of the steel trap and the woodsman's axe that his sire had shown him when he was a pup. This was a scent he had been taught to shun from his earliest days. So, this was the secret of the power of the fence. It looked as penetrable as a thicket of willows, yet it was as strong as a brush fence.
For a long time Redcoat could not believe that he was a prisoner in the inclosure. He could see the night sky with the moon and stars above him. The fresh March wind whistled about his pen, and all that was between him and freedom was this fragile looking fence. Around and around the fence he went, looking for some opening, but there was none. Finally from sheer exhaustion he was obliged to lie down and rest. So he stretched himself out in the very center of the pen, as far from the four walls as possible, and slept. When he awoke the sun was shining brightly and he could hear another fox barking in a distant pen. There were a hundred adult foxes there on the farm very near to Redcoat, but for all intents and purposes he was alone in his prison.
At about seven o'clock a man came trundling a pushcart down the lane between the two lines of pens. He was bringing the foxes morning breakfast. He stopped at Redcoat's pen, and reaching through the fence put the rations for one fox in the food dish. He also poured cool fresh water in the other dish, and then passed on to the next pen. Redcoat did not realize that water and food were at hand until he saw a fox in an adjacent pen standing on his hind legs and drinking out of his water dish. This reminded Redcoat that he was very thirsty himself, yet he would not go near the dish for a long time. It was just another trap. Finally, at about noon, he became so thirsty that he stood upon his hind legs and was about to lap water out of the dish when he noticed that the food dish near by reeked with man scent, so he gave up the attempt, and it was not until the second night of his captivity that he even dared drink.
The following morning he was treated to a great surprise, for one of the men brought a crate and set it up against the door to Redcoat's pen, and then opened it, and a beautiful blue lady fox, who had come all the way from Alaska, stepped into Redcoat's pen.
But Redcoat himself was very unfriendly and treated the newcomer with great disdain. It was hours before he would so much as look at her, and if she went near him or tried to be friendly he growled and turned his back upon her.
Mr. Jennings, who was watching them from the lane outside the fence, thought it one of the funniest things he had ever seen; the dignity and hauteur of Redcoat and the shy glances of the blue stranger.
But there were many influences at work to break down the barrier Redcoat sought to raise between himself and his destined mate. In the first place, he was very lonely and he was thinking constantly of Fluffy and the new litter of little blind fox pups in the den among the spruces. He would never see them again. This man creature had taken him far, far away. He knew not the way back, and this lady fox was trying to be kind to him. But there was one art which she possessed that was more powerful than all others. She admired Redcoat immensely. He was the largest and most beautiful fox she had ever seen, and she made this plain to him at every possible chance. Redcoat could not look in her direction without seeing her gaze at him with adoring eyes, and finally his vanity was touched. Why, this stranger really knew a fine fox when she saw one, and she did admire him. There was no question about that. And, she was a handsome fox herself, although not as beautiful as Fluffy; her ears were shorter, her head was a little chunkier and her face was covered with long coarse hairs, but her coat was very beautiful, and she was such a friendly little creature and Redcoat was so lonely.
So little by little his prejudice was worn away, and Blue Lady won her way first into his confidence and then into his affection.
The first day of his captivity Redcoat had been amazed at the lack of fear of men among these domestic foxes. They did not seem to understand that men were their very worst enemies; that they were continually plotting against their lives with traps, poison, thunder sticks and dogs; but instead they ate the food which tasted so strongly of man scent and freely drank the water that the men placed in the water dish. Not only that, but some of them would stand upon their hind legs and take raisins from the man's hand. Redcoat was horrified on the third day when he saw Blue Lady eating from the man's hand in this way. It was she who first enlightened Redcoat as to the dry goods box in the corner of his pen. The thing that he had thought another trap. This box had a wooden tunnel about a foot foot square leading into it, and to Redcoat's amazement one day Blue Lady crawled into this tunnel and disappeared from sight. Redcoat never expected to see her again. He thought soon the men would come and carry her away as he had been carried off in the box trap. But to his great surprise, in a few seconds she came out of the tunnel none the worse for the adventure. Not only that, but she invited Redcoat to inspect the box. At first he would have nothing to do with it, but finally his curiosity got the best of him and he followed Blue Lady through the tunnel. He found inside first a little hallway and a turn to the left, then he stepped upon a platform and there before him was an inner box about twenty inches square. This was sleeping quarters for two foxes, arranged in this way in order that they might be free from drafts. Blue Lady jumped into the nest and invited Redcoat to share it with her. And, as he was so lonely and Fluffy and the pups were so far away, he followed after her, and the two foxes nestled down in the nest, and they were the best of friends from that hour.
But the life in this strange prison soon became intolerable to Redcoat. He was not used to it. Hitherto the fields, the woods and the green meadows had all been a part of his domain, and now it had narrowed down to this grassless plot of twenty-five feet by fifty. For him there were no more exciting runs through the meadow with the morning wind keen in his face; no more could he sit upon his lookout on the mountainside and watch the man creatures coming and going in the valley below. This life might be very well for these stupid foxes; these foxes who would eat from the hand of their worst enemy and knew not the danger that surrounded them. It was not that Redcoat was hungry or abused, but they had taken away the one thing he valued most in the whole world, his freedom.
Blue Lady, who had never known anything else but confinement, sought to console him, but he was unconsolable. With each day his discontent grew until it finally became an obsession, so that the better part of the night he would prowl about the yard and dig about the fence, seeking for some way out. Finally there was born in his crafty mind a plan, and this he confided to Blue Lady as well as he could through the limited language of a fox. At first she was doubtful, but finally she caught his enthusiasm and entered fully into his plan. So one night at about eight o'clock, after the keeper had scrutinized all the pens and gone home, Redcoat with the assistant of his mate began his desperate adventure.
Meanwhile, the Meadowdale Fox Club had gone on several unsuccessful hunts. Day after day they had sought to start the Phantom Fox but without success. He had disappeared as completely as though the earth had opened and swallowed him, or as one of the hunters said, that he had jumped on the cow-catcher of a passing train and gone to Canada. Finally, it became rumored about that some one bad trapped or shot the Phantom Fox. He was no longer to be found on his favorite range. The Meadowdale Fox Club were quite sure of that. Finally these rumors came to the ears of Kitty Mason. At first she did not take them seriously, but at last their full import came to her, and with it a dark suspicion. There was but one person in the countryside who knew the ways and the habits of Redcoat, and that was Bud Holcome. If anyone had trapped or shot the fox, it was he. So, one evening in a very serious frame of mind, she called Bud on the telephone. He was always glad to hear Kitty's voice but he now saw at once that something serious was in the wind.
"Bud," said Kitty in her most serious manner, "they say some one has shot or trapped the Phantom Fox. The Meadowdale Fox Club have tried every day for a week, but they can not start him. I want you to tell me the truth, Bud, have you shot the Phantom Fox?"
"No Kitty," replied Bud, "I haven't shot him."
"Well, Bud," continued the girl, "have you trapped him?"
"Why, no, that is, not exactly."
"Bud," cried Kitty excitedly, "I know you have trapped him. Tell me the truth."
"Well," said Bud after a long pause, "I can't talk about it over the telephone. I'll come over to the house in a few minutes and tell you all about it."
It was a very shamefaced Bud, with his recent radiance all gone out of him, who finally appeared at the Mason farmhouse. He knew there was no use prevaricating, for Kitty would know the truth, so he told her the whole story.
"You see, Kit," he concluded, "I did it as much for his good as for mine. I knew the Fox Club would get him if I didn't. I had a chance to save him and make five hundred dollars for college so I took it."
Kitty sat for several minutes with her brows knitted before making her reply, then what she said sent Bud Holcome's heart way down in his boots, for with her words his vision of college suddenly vanished.
"Bud," she said, "you have taken away from Redcoat the thing that he valued most in the world, his freedom. He was born a free fox and a free fox he should be. I just know he would rather take his chances with traps, poison, men and dogs than to be cooped up there on that old fox farm. You and I have got to go to Mr. Jennings and buy him back, and then set him free. There is no other way."
"But, Kitty," expostulated Bud, "I will have to give up going to college."
"It can't be helped," returned the girl. "I just know what I am telling you is the right thing to do. There is no other honorable course. You cannot build your success on Redcoat's misery."
"But Kitty, he's just an ordinary red fox, and it means so much to me."
"I know, Bud, but he isn't just an ordinary red fox. He is a very exceptional fox and he is a sort of friend of mine. I never told you much about it, but I got acquainted with him two years ago up in the pasture. He came out and sat down and looked at me while I picked berries. I talked to him and he did not seem to be afraid at all. Another time I saw him with his family, Mrs. Fox and the four pups, and they looked so happy together. But that is not all Bud, I saw him once in a terrible plight. He was wounded and running on three legs and a score of brutal men with their hounds had nearly run the life out of this little red fox. He came stumbling into the roadway and fell almost at my horse's feet. Then the whole thing came home to me in a new way. I saw it all with new light. I determined that you and the rest of the men should not get him, so I wrapped a blanket about him and picked him up in my arms and tucked him under the seat of the sleigh, and drove away with him, and neither hunter nor hounds knew where he went. I left him half a mile from the road up in father's woodlot, and he wagged his tail at me as he went away, and I determined then I would always be his friend, so I've got to stand by him now, Bud. You have got to buy him back and set him free."
Bud argued and expostulated, but all to no purpose. So, it was finally agreed that they would get an early start for the fox farm on the following morning.
It was just about the time that Kitty and Bud were having their solemn conversation as to their right to keep the price of Redcoat's freedom, when he set to work to do something for himself. From the digging that he had done on previous days, he had discovered that the wire fence ran back for a foot and a half underground into the pen but just at this point he had one day luckily dug a hole under the netting almost as far as the perpendicular portion of the fence. Fortunately for him Blue Lady had concluded he was spoiling their pen, so she had at once filled up the hole and padded down the dirt with her paws, thus this digging had not been discovered by the keeper of the farm. Redcoat very quickly threw out the soft dirt that he had dug the day before and started in on his enterprise, burrowing under the fence. He soon had Blue Lady as excited as himself and together they fairly made the earth fly. Redcoat would dig down in the hole until he became exhausted and out of breath, while Blue Lady would throw the dirt back towards the middle of the pen, then she would take her turn digging while Redcoat threw the dirt back. Feverishly they worked. The task seemed endless. They dug and dug and dug, while the dirt flew back beneath their feet. Finally about three o'clock in the morning, when Redcoat had despaired of ever finding his way to the green grass on the further side of the fence, his frantically working paws went through the sod and a little later he enlarged the hole, with the help of Blue Lady who was throwing the dirt back. In another half hour he had made the opening large enough so that both of them escaped into the outer incisure. But Redcoat's work was not all done. His freedom was still beyond another fence. This was the guard fence which encircled the farm some fifty feet beyond the pens. As soon as Redcoat examined this carefully he saw that the netting here at the bottom of the fence lay upon the ground. He had digged and worked at this wire netting so much during the past two weeks that he had lost his fear of it, so he now grabbed it firmly in his teeth and pulled it upward with all his might. Blue Lady got hold beside him and the pair pulled together. Soon they raised it and bent it up six or eight inches from the ground, and this greatly simplified their digging process, for they now had merely to make a tunnel through under the main fence.
Three hours more of desperate digging and the trick was done. A trench large enough to admit of their crawling under the fence had been made.
The consternation of the keeper of the fox farm may well be imagined, as he came trundling the foxes' breakfast down to the farm, to see Redcoat wriggle out from under the guard fence, and while he was still watching him too astonished to speak or even move, Blue Lady followed. It was now too late to make any move to stop them, and while the keeper rushed forward yet his efforts were futile, for Redcoat led the way towards a nearby woods at a pace that would have even left the hounds behind, and Blue Lady had just enough confidence in his leading to follow.
Bud and Kitty had climbed into the Ford coupe and started for the fox farm at five o'clock that morning. The trip had been a rather solemn one. All of Bud's plans for the immediate future had been given up and, as he had said, just for an old red fox.
"I might of had him, Kitty, months ago," the boy confided as the car hummed along the country road. "I got him once fair and square in a steel trap and he outwitted me."
"Why, you never told me, Bud. How did it happen?"
"Well," said Bud, "I was such a fool and he was so clever I didn't want to tell anybody. I got him in the brook and when I found him he was floating on the water, apparently drowned, I picked him up in my arms and laid him on the bank in the sun to dry, and a minute later when I looked for him he was rushing through the underbrush at about a mile a minute.
"But that wasn't all. Another time I found him in a terrible plight. It was a cold winter morning and he had tried to lick blood from a rail on the track. His tongue had stuck to the cold steel. The train was rushing down upon him from one direction, while I came from another with my rifle. I raised the gun to shoot him, when he looked up into my eyes with a look that melted me. I could not shoot him after that; instead I freed him from the track. Two seconds more of delay and the train would have got us both."
"Bud, that was fine of you! I am proud of you. A fellow who has got a soft spot in his heart for the dumb creatures, even though they be only foxes, is a boy that a girl can trust."
The little car whirred up to the fox farm about half an hour after Redcoat and Blue Lady had disappeared in the nearby woods.
Mr. Jennings was much surprised to see the young people, and even more surprised at Bud's first words, "I've come to buy back the red fox," he said. "Kitty and I have concluded that I ought to buy him back and set him free."
"You see, Mr. Jennings," put in the girl, "he's a wild fox and he loves the out-of-doors. He was born on the mountain and he has hunted in the meadows, and he could never be happy here in the fox pen, so Bud has come to buy him back."
Mr. Jennings looked at them in astonishment, which finally ended in his laugbing beartily.
"What about college?" he asked. "I thought this five undred dollars was to start you off."
"Yes, it was," said Kitty. "But we have to do what's right. Bud and I talked it all over and we agreed he could not keep the money, if Redcoat bad to be a prisoner on his account."
"All right," replied Mr. Jennings. "I will sell him to you on one condition. He's kind of wild this morning and you'll have to catch him yourselves." So he led the way to the fox pen, closely followed by the young people.
He stopped before the pile of fresh dirt by the guard fence and looked at it curiously.
"What's that?" asked Bud.
"Why," replied Mr. Jennings nonchalantly, "that is a new front door; one that Redcoat made for himself this very morning. See that hole under the fence yonder; that is another front door leading from his pen to the lane."
"But, where is he?" inquired Bud excitedly, not fully sensing Mr. Jennings' joke, yet getting a glimmer of the truth.
"Heaven only knows," replied Mr. Jennings solemnly. "The last we saw of him he was making for the woods and he was closely followed by the best blue fox on the farm."
"What?" cried the young folks in chorus. "Has Redcoat escaped?"
"Not only that," replied Mr. Jennings, "but he has taken with him the most valuable lady fox we had, and we have said goodby to them."
"Well," said Bud, holding out the envelope containing the money, "here is the five hundred dollars."
"It isn't mine," said Mr. Jennings. "I haven't any fox to sell you, for Redcoat by his own cunning has accomplished his own freedom and given Bud his first year at college."
And here the story of Redcoat really ends; but for the benefit of those who love to go behind the scenes and see what happens after the actors have left the stage and the curtain has fallen, I have written the following pages.
When Redcoat led that headlong flight from the fox farm to the nearest woods, his greatest anxiety was that Blue Lady would not keep up with him. For several weeks he was greatly worried at her indifference as to the danger from men and their devices. She had been born on an island fox farm in Behring Sea, and had seen men all her life. Nearly all the food that she had eaten had come from their hands. So she looked upon them as benefactors rather than enemies. But little by little Redcoat instilled into her a fear of their worst enemy. He taught her all his fox lore, his knowledge of men and dogs and traps and poison, and all this time he hunted for both of them.
Blue Lady thought him the most wonderful fox that she had ever seen, and this greatly flattered his vanity, so he became more daring than ever. Many were the wonderful feasts that the pair of foxes had at the expense of the farmers, as they journeyed leisurely northward, for although they zigzagged about, yet their course was always to the north. There were two reasons for this. First, Redcoat knew that his old range was to the south and he wished to get as far away from it as possible. Then too, the winds from the north were cooler and fresher than those from the south. Somehow this suggestion of cold satisfied Redcoat, as the balmy south breezes did not. For the foxes are children of the snow, for they always revel in the first snowstorm of the season, rolling and swimming in it, and playing in it like children. When it is deep enough, they will curl up like round balls, hiding their noses in their bushy tails, and let the storm cover them; even sleeping all night in a snow bed.
Finally after four months of leisurely travelling, Redcoat and his companion came to a lonely land just on the border between the New England states and the Dominion of Canada. Here there was a region of three townships which held more deserted farms than any other similar area in the United States. It was fifteen miles to the nearest railroad and the country roads were so rough and the hills so steep that motorists always went by another way if they could. And here Redcoat and his mate ceased their wanderings and settled down.
I will give you just one more picture of the fox family before leaving them.
It is early June. June with its deep blue skies, and its fleecy white clouds. The little breeze has been racing across the meadows and has come up to the edge of the woods with its breath fragrant from clover blossom. On a grassy plot, just above a little stream, the fox family are disporting themselves. Blue Lady and six little foxes are having such a wonderful time. The mother fox lies sprawled out on the grass, while two of the pups pull her tail and two others romp over her. The two remaining pups are chasing a very lively grasshopper.
On the grassy plot above them, in a sunny place, Redcoat lies stretched to his full length, with his nose upon his paws. His eyes are partly closed, yet he sees and hears and smells everything, for his senses are all alert guarding his little family from any lurking danger. Never in his whole life has he felt so contented or safe from his enemies. The days of the Thunderer and honking automobiles and fox clubs and galloping horses all seem like a bad dream. True, an occasional fisherman wades the little stream which runs through the meadow where the foxes hunt mice, but the fishermen are not interested in foxes. Also an occasional camping party comes into this fastness to enjoy the primeval beauty of nature. But these are all peaceable people, with a love of wild life. So the fox family goes unharmed, notwithstanding these invasions.
If Mr. Jennings, the fox breeder, could only have seen this little family he would have gone wild at the sight, for it was just such a blend of the blue and red foxes as he had dreamed of for years. Two of the pups still clung to the type. One was a perfect picture of Redcoat, and the other of Blue Lady. But the four remaining pups were half and half, with the beautiful head of Redcoat and the luxuriant coat of Blue Lady. The blue jay could have told you where the den was located, for he had seen the fox family the first day the pups came forth. The whitethroat, which now sang in the poplars above them, could have told you much of their ways, for he saw them come each day to this grass plot to romp. A certain pool in the trout stream nearby could have told you just how the little foxes looked when they came each day to drink of the cool water. But the Blue Jay, the whitethroat, and the Brook all keep their counsel. So there upon the grass plot, let us leave them, in this lonely land far from the haunts of men. For Redcoat has at last found the refuge from his many enemies and is happy, after his kind. No more is heard the diabolical shriek of the Thunderer, the honking of automobile horns, or the baying of fox hounds. Instead, there is a bird song and the low music of the singing brook, and a deep peace over all the land.